Raspberry Sparkle

I may have written about this before, but I think I've just been thinking about it. I hope so. It would be sad to be repeating myself when I haven't even achieved 365 entries yet.

I remember the first Christmas present I bought for my mother. I was 5, the age Lily is about to turn, which gives me a jolt. I was so...conscious then. I mean, I remember walking up and down the aisles in the Osco drugstore, which used to be in the Star Market on my hometown's main drag. I remember that I had my own money in a little purse, not more than a few dollars, but it was mine, and I was going to buy my own present with it. And I remember the gift itself: wholly unsuitable, a lipstick called Raspberry Sparkle in a royal blue tube, that stuck around in our house for years after that Christmas.

I remember thinking that the lipstick, sold to me by Joanna Lewis, one of the thirteen children who lived next door and worked at Osco, was very glamorous. I remember thinking that my mother, whose blond hair curled at the ends and who had leather sandals and woven belts and laughed with her head tilted back, was glamorous, too. And although her regular lipstick, which she wore only on special occasions, was a natural tannish color, which I knew, having tried it on myself many times, I allowed myself to imagine that Raspberry Sparkle--true to its name, a glittery berry-soaked pink--would become its replacement.

My mother oohed and aahed over her lipstick, and she put it on. And as I remember, it did look glamorous with her light blue eyes and soft blond hair. And I am reminded of the way Lily watches me from the bathroom stepstool on the rare occasions I put on lipstick, shades that are progeny of my mother's neutrals from the seventies, and the way she will sometimes look at me when I am laughing, head cocked ever so slightly, appraisingly, and say, "Mama? You just look so beautiful."